During the 1988 – 1989 academic school year, Dr. Jim Boyd, then Dean of the Tarleton State University College of Education and Fine Arts, founded the Effective Schools Project (ESP). What Boyd did not anticipate, however, was that this project would eventually gain Tarleton statewide recognition for its excellence in partnerships for furthering education. ESP is explained within the Project overview provided by Dr. Bill Larmer.

“The project is a collaborative professional development program for educators involving principals and teachers from public schools in the Tarleton service area, as well as faculty in the College of Education and other areas of the Tarleton campus,” the overview stated.

In the 25 years that the project has been maintained, the average number of schools that participate in the partnership range between 65 and 75.

The partnerships created by the ESP have had a variety of benefits for the schools that participate, as outlined in the overview.

“ESP annually plans a series of professional development workshops that are designed to help principals and teachers deliver an increasingly more effective instructional program for their students.  Each workshop addresses one or more of the broad correlates of effective schools, and each is led by a prominent authority in the field of education.  The project has been able to expose participants to an impressive ‘national faculty’ that has included many of America’s foremost school researchers, consultants and educational reformers.”

Through the ESP program, Tarleton has made lasting impressions on school districts in surrounding districts, including Alvarado, Cleburne and Granbury. The lasting partnerships that have been built through this education program are what have led to Tarleton being one of five Texas universities to be awarded the Quest of Quality Award.

The Center for Research, Evaluation and Advancement of Teacher Education is a consortium of the University of Houston System, the Texas A&M University System, the Texas State University System, and the University of Texas System.

Alvarado ISD provided support to this consortium so that the ESP could be recognized for the work it has done to provide quality support to the advancement of educational practices throughout the state.

Tarleton’s ESP program has done much in the past to provide this kind of quality support, and even now that it has been recognized for this effort, it will lose none of its momentum. The Jim Boyd Effective Schools Project has a long history, and will continue to make history throughout the legacy of Tarleton.